The zip ties were still on her wrists.
Evelyn had been working on them for what felt like hours — twisting, pulling, testing the angle of the plastic against the chair arms — and the only thing she had accomplished was cutting deeper into her skin. She could feel the raw sting of it every time she moved her hands, which was constantly, because stopping felt worse than the pain.
Derek was still chained to the bars across the room.
He had been trying to free his arms for as long as she had been trying the zip ties, the same methodical effort
"Stop," Derek said, without looking at her.
Her eyes widened, "What? I'm almost—"
"You're not almost. You're going to cut through the skin." He did look at her then, briefly. "Stop for a minute."
"We can't stop," she said with a shake of her head and when she saw he was ready to argue she didn't let him. "We can't. She's gonna find Scott and she's gonna kill him."
A few hours back, she had come back to consciousness.
The first thing she had registered was the smell — burnt metal and something chemical, the remains of the equipment she had destroyed. The second thing was the sound.
A fist hitting flesh. Rhythmic, patient, the specific quality of someone doing something methodical rather than angry.
She had blinked the room into focus slowly, her arms entirely detached from her, her head enormous and far away. And she had seen him — the hunter, the one who didn't speak, standing in front of Derek with his sleeves rolled up, working through something with the focused efficiency of a man completing a task.
Derek's head was down. There was blood on his face, dark and slow, and more on his chest. But his jaw was set, and he was not making a sound, and every time the hunter's fist landed he simply absorbed it with the specific stillness of someone who had decided that this was not going to be the thing that broke him.
She had watched, helpless, her wrists still tied, her arms still empty, the warmth completely gone.
Then Derek had looked up.
His eyes had found her across the room — registering that she was awake, registering her state, doing the rapid calculation she had come to recognise from him. Something in his face had said: stay still and don't make it worse. She had understood it without needing words.
Kate had come in shortly after that.
She had noticed Evelyn immediately — a quick glance that took in everything, the way Kate's glances always did — and raised one hand toward the hunter without looking at him. He had stopped. Stepped back. Kate had said something low to him, and he had left the room without a word.
Then she had pulled the chair around and sat down backwards, entirely relaxed, and looked at Evelyn with something that was almost impressed.
"Good morning," she had said pleasantly. "Or evening. Hard to tell down here, right?" Then she tilted her head. "How did you do it?"
Evelyn looked at her with wide eyes. "What?"
"I've met many creatures," Kate said with an amused smile, "But this stunt that you've done, that was the first time I've seen anything like that." The sound of the punches made Evelyn shiver, closing her eyes to try and not look.
"Then, behind her, the sound of the hunter's fist landing again, and Evelyn's jaw tightened and she looked away.
"Hey." Kate's voice was almost gentle. "Look at me."
Evelyn looked at her instead of at Derek, because that was what Kate wanted and she understood, with the cold clarity of exhaustion, that giving Kate what she wanted in small things was the only currency she had right now.
"You care about him," Kate said. The same observation she had made the night before, the one she had already used once. "This kinds of things always ends up badly, believe me."
"Should I believe my kidnapper?" Evelyn asked, not able to keep quiet. And Kate laughed.
Then she stood, raised her hand toward the hunter again, and he stopped, stepping back. Evelyn immediately tired to find Derek's eyes as Kate said something low to the man and he left the room without a word.
The silence after the door closed was enormous.
Kate pulled the chair around and sat down, and looked at Derek with an expression that had settled into something quieter and more deliberate.
"Unfortunately, Derek," she said, sitting down on the chiar, "if you're not going to talk... I'm just going to have to kill you." Evelyn's body tensed. What could she do? How could she help him?
"So. Say hi to your sister for me." Kate said, before stopping what she was doing, as if she remembered something, "You did tell her about me, didn't you? The truth about the fire?"
Evelyn frowned as she listened. What did it mean? Kate had a reason for what she had done? Is that what she was implying?
Derek did not move, nor he said a word. Evelyn was confused... what did it mean? Did Derek helped her with the fire?
This doesn't make any sense, she thought as she kept looking at Derek.
His silence seemed to amuse Kate quite enough, because she get closer to him once again, "Or did you? Did you tell anybody?" she asked viciously. And the expression on Derek's face broke Evelyn's heart. She could see all his sadness, and regreat, and guilt.
Derek...
"Oh, sweetie. That's just a lot of guilt to keep buried. It's not all your fault." Kate had stood, moving toward him with that unhurried walk. "You got tricked by a pretty face. It happens. Handsome young werewolf mistakenly falls in love with a super-hot girl who comes from a family that kills werewolves." She stopped in front of him. "Is that ironic? Is it ironic that you're inadvertently helping me track down the rest of the pack — again? Or is it just a little bit of history repeating?"
She used him, Evelyn thought feeling her eyes fill with tear. She could not imagine how hard it must have been for him after what Kate had done.
"Even this little interest of yours," Kate said looking at Evelyn, then Kate's expression changed, thoughtful as she talked to herself. "History repeating..."
Evelyn frowned, as Derek looked up. Kate's eyes grew larger in realization.
"It is not the boy that is always with the vampire," Kate said, "And it's not even Jackson..."
Oh my God, Evelyn thought with panic.
"No, no, no." Kate's voice had gone lighter. "He's got a little scratch on the back of his neck, but... he's not in love with Allison." A pause that had taken a very long time. "Not like Scott."
The name had landed in the room like something dropped from a height.
Evelyn had felt her stomach go cold. She had looked at Derek. He had been looking at the door with the specific quality of someone watching something they had tried very hard to prevent becoming exactly what they feared.
Kate had picked up her jacket, said something low to the hunter on her way out, and left.
The door had been closed since then. And Evelyn had not one stopped to pull her wrist, she had even tired with some formulas... but she was too tired and she could not channel anything. She had pushed herself too much.
Now Evelyn looked at her wrists — raw, red, the skin around the zip ties beginning to look worse than it had — and tried the warmth one more time. Palms flat against the chair arms, eyes closed, reaching for whatever it was that had answered in the clinic and come roaring up through her in the dark when the man at the table had moved one too many times.
Nothing. The specific hollowness of a well drawn completely dry and not yet filled back up.
She opened her eyes.
"What time do you think it is?" she asked.
"Late." Derek worked the chain against the bolt, that slow grinding pressure she had been listening to for hours. "Evening."
Evening. The Formal would have already started. She had bought her dress the day Michael had asked her to it. Clara had been so happy, she had brought her to the shop herself.
Evelyn had been so caught up by whatever had been happening that she didn't enjoyed the shopping like she would have liked. It was green... her mother had liked it when she saw it.
"My mother doesn't know where I am," she said.
Derek didn't answer.
"She'll have noticed by now." Evelyn pulled against the ties again, uselessly. "She'll be standing in the kitchen with her hands around a mug going cold. That's what she does when she's scared." A pause. "She's going to think something terrible happened."
"She'll be fine," Derek said. Flat, matter-of-fact, no gentleness in it, and somehow that made it easier to believe than if he had tried to soften it.
"No she won't," Evelyn whispered, "She had tried all her life to keep me far away from people like you. And now I'm here..."
She heard him stop with his moviments, and she could feel his eyes on her. "I didn't want for you to be taken."
Evelyn nodded, "I believe you," then she glanced up at him with a little smile, "You must have hated me so bad if you did." Derek held her gaze for a moment, before roaring one more time, almost making her flinch.
"We'll get out of here, okay?" Derek said pulling at his chains again. Evelyn observed him for a moment in silence as he kept pulling.
"I'm sorry I couldn't do much," she said biting her lips.
"You've done enough," he said. The words came out flat, the way his words always did, but there was something underneath them that somehow reassured her.
"I don't know what you did, but it wasn't nothing," Derek said focusing on pulling the chains again.
She didn't either. It felt different from anything she had done before. This time had been explosive, powerful, like a wave, impossible to control. Was it that what Deaton had told her about?
She was still turning that over in her mind when Derek made a sound — sharper than the others, surprise and effort compressed into a single breath — and she looked up.
His left arm was free.
The chain swung loose on one side, his left hand coming down from above his head and closing into a fist at his side. He was breathing hard. His arm was shaking slightly.
"Oh my god, Derek!"
Something moved through his expression that was, she thought, the closest thing to relief she had ever seen on his face.
"Almost," he said, already reaching across himself, one hand free and pulling at the other chain, working the angle differently now. "Almost—"
He stopped, and his whole body went still.
Evelyn frowned, "What is it?"
"He's coming back," he said quietly.
She went cold and her eyes grew larger. She could hear it now — footsteps, heavier, echoing in what seemed like a corridor and they were getting steadily closer.
"Oh my god, Derek!" she whispered looking at him.
"Stay quiet." His voice was low and completely level. "And let me handle this."
She pressed her back against the chair and held the zip ties perfectly still and looked at him — one arm free, one still chained, burns on his skin and exhaustion in every line of him — and thought that he really, genuinely, could not help being impossible to like.
The footsteps reached the door and just few seconds later the door opened.
The hunter stepped in with his sleeves still rolled up, flexing his right hand slowly. His eyes moved across the room — Derek still chained, Evelyn still in the chair — and something in his expression settled into satisfied ease.
"Ready to have some more fun?" he said pleasantly. "To be honest, my knuckles are kind of hurting..." His gaze shifted to Evelyn, and the ease in his face took on a different quality. "Maybe I'll work on something softer this time."
The sound that came from across the room was low and immediate — not a roar, something shorter and rougher, the specific sound of something that had run entirely out of patience.
The hunter turned toward Derek who was glaring at him dangerously.
"Playing the hero? Alright." He reached behind him and came back with a baseball bat, turning it once in his hand with the easy familiarity of someone who had done this before. "I brought some help. I should warn you though — I used to play in college."
He swung, but Derek's left arm came up.
The crack of the bat echoed off the concrete walls, and Derek's hand closed around it before the hunter had time to pull back, and the expression on the man's face moved from satisfaction to something considerably less comfortable.
"I brought a little help, too," Derek said.
The hunter turned. And Evelyn found herself doing the same. Her eyes widened when she noticed who was standing at the door.
Scott was standing in the entrance, slightly out of breath, his eyes moving across the room in the rapid inventory she recognised — chains, chair, burns on Derek's arms, her wrists — and something in his face tightened into something hard and ready.
The tightness in Evelyn's chest released so suddenly it almost hurt.
Derek hit the hunter.
One movement, full force, and the man left the ground briefly before hitting the far wall and fainting at the ground.
Scott was already crossing the room.
"Eve!" He reached her in four steps, his eyes wide as they moved over her face, her wrists, all of it. "Oh, my god..."
His claws came out and he cut through the zip ties in a single motion. The plastic fell away and Evelyn's hands were hers again, raw and throbbing, and she stood and Scott's arms came around her and she let them.
"God, I'm so glad to see you," she said into his shoulder.
"Me and Stiles were so worried!" His voice was rough. He pulled back to look at her properly, hands on her shoulders. "What happened? Are you alright?"
"No," she said honestly. "But Derek got it worse. Kate took both of us." Scott's jaw tightened and she didn't let him say anything. "There's no time, we have to help him."
She moved toward Derek, but Scott's hand caught her arm.
"Wait, wait."
She frowned. "What? We have to be fast, she might come back—"
"Scott, help me with this," Derek said from across the room, still chained by one arm, his voice carrying the specific strain of someone who had been holding something together for a very long time.
"No," Scott said.
"What?!" The word came from both of them at exactly the same time.
"Not until you tell me how to stop Peter."
Evelyn stared at him. "Can't we talk about it while we go?"
"She's right." Derek's voice had gone to that place it sometimes went — too much edge, too aggressive, the place that made people want to step back rather than closer. He really had no idea how to handle people. "You really wanna talk about this right now?"
"He's going after Allison and her family," Scott said. "He's going to kill them."
Evelyn took a breath. "Well," she said, "I feel the sentiment." Scott turned to look at her. "I have been kidnapped by that woman. I won't root for her safety."
"And Allison's?"
Evelyn found herself taking a deep breath.
"Alright," Evelyn said. "For Allison I can make an exception."
Scott looked back at Derek. "Tell me how to stop him."
"You can't!" Derek pulled at the remaining chain and it held, and something in his face moved through frustration into something rawer underneath. "Alright? I don't know when Kate is coming back, so just get me out of this right now." His voice cracked upward on the last words, loud enough to fill the room. "Get me out right now!"
The silence after it was enormous.
Evelyn turned to Scott. "This is crazy," she said. "Please. Help him."
But he wouldn't move.
"Promise you'll help me," Scott insisted, looking straight into Derek's eyes.
"You want me to risk my life for your girlfriend?" Something had shifted in Derek's voice — past frustration now, into something older and harder. "For your stupid little teenage crush that means absolutely nothing? You're not in love, Scott. You're sixteen years old. You're a child."
Evelyn looked at him. The words were cruel, maybe. Probably. But she found, standing in this room after everything she had heard in the last hours, that she couldn't entirely push them away. He had been the same age when Kate had looked at him with that particular ease of hers. When he had believed her. When he had — without knowing it, without meaning to — helped her walk into that house. And now he had found his uncle again, the only person left from everything that had burned, and Scott was standing in front of him asking him to risk that for a girl.
How could he believe in love at that age? How could he believe in it at any age, after this?
She looked at him and felt something that wasn't quite sympathy and wasn't quite grief but sat somewhere between the two.
"Maybe you're right," Scott said quietly. Something in his face had changed. "But I know something you don't." He reached into his jacket and held something out.
Evelyn recognised it. A flyer — a photograph of a deer, dead, with the spiral symbol marked on its side. She had seen it at the clinic, on Deaton's desk, one morning that she was arranging the appointments.
"This is what brought your sister back to Beacon Hills, right?" Scott asked.
Derek said nothing. But his jaw had tightened in a way that was its own answer.
"Where did you get that?" he said.
"At the animal clinic," Evelyn said, before she could stop herself. "Right, Scott?"
Scott nodded. "My boss told me — three months ago, someone came into the clinic asking for a copy of this picture." He held Derek's gaze. "Do you want to know who it was? Peter's nurse." Evelyn covered her mouth with her hand. "They brought your sister here so that Peter could kill her and become the Alpha."
The room went very still.
"That's why you're going to help me," Scott said.
Evelyn turned to Derek.
She watched it move through him — the specific way his body absorbed something that couldn't be undone, the way his shoulders changed, the way his jaw changed, the stillness of someone who has just had a door open onto something they cannot close again. Peter had killed Laura deliberately. He had planned it.
She wanted to say something. She didn't have anything that was worth saying though.
Scott let out a slow breath. "Just say you'll help me, and I'll help you unlock your other—"
The chain broke.
Not unlocked — broken, the links giving way with a sound like a gunshot, Derek's arm coming free with the specific force of something that had been held too long and had finally found its direction. He stood in the middle of the room, both hands free, his chest rising and falling hard.
"I'll help you," he said.
His voice was very quiet, but she could feel all the anger underneath.